Free FTP Client roundup

[Stephen Coates]

I can't remember whether I tried CuteFTP a few years ago.

I did used to use SmartFTP but i had some issues with it. Can't remember what as I remember it being quite good alot of the time.

However since then I have just been using WS_FTP 5.08 which I installed about 5 years ago and it works fine.

The first FTP client I used was the FTP thingy which you can access from the windows commandline by doing 'FTP ftp.server.com'.

[Harrison]

I've just found another free FTP Client which is much better than any of the others. It's a lot more polished and contains many similar features to Smartftp.

It is called WinSCP http://winscp.net/

It doesn't have tabbed sessions, but it can open more than one ftp connection at a time and you can jump between then from either a pull down box, or shortcut keys.

It has a download queue, but I've not tried it out yet.

It has directory tree navigation (the first I've found).

It is also very fast and easy to use.

It also has direct SSH support with integration with Putty which is great for me, and it can uncompress and compress files remotely which is very useful and saves having to type SSH commands to do it.

It is however missing a few of the advanced features that are nice in SmartFTP. There is no advanced download queue, no download speed graphs (that I've yet to find), and the ftp transfer log activity is displayed in a separate window instead of being docked to the bottom of the main client's window. But other than that it is good and the FTP Client I will be using for the moment.

[woody.cool]

I got so pissed off with a lot of the free FTP clients, that I made my own FTP client in Visual Basic. It was very basic, but I thought it was impressive for something I knocked together in about 2 hours tops!

[Demon Cleaner]

I got so pissed off with a lot of the free FTP clients, that I made my own FTP client in Visual Basic. It was very basic, but I thought it was impressive for something I knocked together in about 2 hours tops!

So do you still use it?

[woody.cool]

I got so pissed off with a lot of the free FTP clients, that I made my own FTP client in Visual Basic. It was very basic, but I thought it was impressive for something I knocked together in about 2 hours tops!

So do you still use it?

Yep! I love it. Screenshots to follow ...

[Demon Cleaner]

Great, would definitely like to see them. How's it called, CoolFTP

[woody.cool]

I called it Tiny FTP Client - because of the fact that it fits on a floppy disk (which is an achievement for any Windows application)

As promised - screenies!


The login screen


The FTP transfer window

Like I said ...... very basic!

[Harrison]

It might be quite basic, but it looks good for anyone wanting just a simple ftp client. Have you released it or just hept it for yourself?

[woody.cool]

Just kept to myself. I don't like releasing stuff, becuase it means I got to continually support it and make it better, I only make this stuff to serve my purpose.
It's all good experience, anyway. This is how I learnt programming in VB - by making basic little utilities that do things.
I was really surprissed that this worked in XP though, as I wrote it in VB4 and Windows 95 was the latest and greatest operating system back then (it was also the first PC I ever owned too).
I've also tried it in Vista and been met with success, so I think I can safely say, that it works on jsut about any OS.

Do you think I should release it?

I also wrote a basic web browser, aimed at special needs children (I worked as an IT techy in a special needs school) and the teachers had access to "FTP mode" which basically was the above FTP client, integrated in to my basic web browser.